Where are you now karmie?

I realized it has been too long since i've really updated my blog and I am sincerely sorry for this. There are many reasons and I really should have taken some time off to at least write a small snippet of my week. I'll try to update my blog a little more frequently this semester. First and foremost let me update with the highlights about what happened since Chuseok of last year until recently in Korea. I went to Gyeongju which was the capital of the Silla Kingdom back when Korea was still in the Three Kingdoms period. To be honest, I went there for the purpose of watching a kpop concert. However, my friend and I found this amazing package for less than 200,000 KRW and we decided to go with it. What was included was VIP tickets to the Kpop Hallyu Dream concert, accommodation, transportation, a cultural tour of Gyeongju, a traditional Korean concert and a couple meals. It was really an amazing package for the weekend. It was a really fun experience. Got to experience the old ...

As I am having a lazy evening right now, I thought I would update my blog today. So... Chuseok was fun! I felt it was basically how Canadians (well at least my family) celebrate Thanksgiving. Except Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving's level of importance is way higher then a Canadian Thanksgiving. It's almost like Christmas. Everywhere you go in Seoul it would be filled with families gathering together. My home stay family is a Christian family so they celebrate it differently. Like any other family, they would prepare the food the day before and on Chuseok, everyone gathers and eats together. My home stay family, gathered from morning to night. We ate food in the morning, talked, talked, talked, (I didn't understand 90% of it), eat some more, talk, talk, decide to get in the car, go to Haneul Park which basically looks over all of Seoul. Really cool park and then talk some more before going to a different place to eat some more and then all the young ones went to Karaoke bef...

Sinchon Intersection  Hello Kitty Cafe w/ Frenz I can't believe I've been here for more or less 3 weeks. The sad thing is I've always been in Seoul this whole time and haven't really seen that much within Seoul except for the stuff on the city tour. There is Sinchon, the major food/shopping (but i feel it's more food) hub right in front of the Yonsei University and it's also close to Ehwa University or otherwise known as Idae. In Idae, there are lots of coffee shops and more shopping area. I only passed by but it's mostly cheap and cute shopping area. Another shopping area or hang out for university students or young people are Hongdae. Hongdae is SUPER busy at night especially. Actually, even though it's busy, you should go at night. Because lots of the street food is out, and there are lots of street musicians. If you take the subway to Hongdae at night, you will always see people going in with their guitar on their backs to set up to sing at...

So, it's been a while since I've written or updated. Basically from the last time I updated, I've had done the city tour, relaxed for a couple days before school started. The Blue House Bukchon The city tour wasn't that great because we were all on a schedule so my friends and I that met that day we felt like the city tour were just giving us ideas of places to go to on our own time. I mean we went to the Presidential area, visited the blue house which is like the South Korean equivalent of the White house. We weren't allowed inside tho as predicted. We also went to like a museum beside the area where we could see like Korean history displayed. There we had the opportunity to take a picture as if we were the president of Korea or we could even take a picture with like a hologram or some sort of the President of Korea but the line up for that was too long, so  my friends and I posed as the president of Korea. That was really fun. Then we were rushed onto the...

So today... was church day. It was interesting to say the least. The church was HUGE! It's a presbyterian church and I've never gone to a presbyterian service before. It's very... evangelical to say the least. I don't know, when I do go to church in Canada or even Indonesia, I'm used to going to small congregation churches and usually the church building is only 2 floors max. This church was 12 stories in total. 6 floors going up and 6 floors underground. It has a library facility and a very huge sanctuary and they are adding onto it to build an even larger sanctuary. Apparently there are about 10,000 members of the church. I'm floored at the massiveness of the church. I wish I did take a picture of the building. I'll have more chances and I'll show it to you how massive the church is and will be. My home stay parents are very active members of the church it seems. My home stay mother introduced me to a lady, in which I didn't catch a name, who beca...

So, I arrived in Seoul after a long 14 hour trip. 14? maybe even 15. The layover in Shanghai was brutal to say the least. Well the flight to Shanghai itself was brutal as well. First, there was no tv like i'm used to on long flight travels. Second, My laptop wasn't fully charged, so I couldn't even use it for long as I was saving it for the layover. Third, Food/service on the plane wasn't that great. I got 2 meals and some sort of sandwich snack. Also, I told you yesterday about gate checking in my guitar? Well, that didn't work out well. At least they let me put it in the overhead compartment besides it being a full flight. However, I sat beside a really nice person who helped me. The flight attendants were not really good at understanding English, so the person beside me helped me ask the flight attendants what to do and etc. So the 12 hr flight to Shanghai was brutal with me fighting to sleep or staring into nothingness, attempt at conversation to the perso...